Virginia Gun Massacre

IdleRich

IdleRich
I must say I'm very surprised that there has been no thread on this today (or have I missed it?). In general it seems that the reaction has been a lot more muted than to the Columbine Massacre, maybe there is just nothing to say?
Anyway, it looks as if they think they know who did it now, the next question is why....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6563565.stm
 

john eden

male pale and stale
There was some gun nut on Newsnight saying that everything would have been ok if the students and staff on the campus had all been armed.

He was an ex- cop tho.

Aside from the gun issue there is a fundamental point about why a certain percentage of the population consistently flips out and feels the need to massacre people.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Aside from the gun issue there is a fundamental point about why a certain percentage of the population consistently flips out and feels the need to massacre people."
Well exactly.
The main result of this is inevitably going to be discussion of gun-control laws, probably some stuff about immigration (given that he was Korean) and woe-betide any band or computer games that he was into.
But you're right, even in a world where there were no available guns the guy would have (presumably) wanted to do it, we just wouldn't have known - why?

"Slave rebellion."
Cheers, just reading this now.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
There was some gun nut on Newsnight saying that everything would have been ok if the students and staff on the campus had all been armed.

Sadly this is not an isolated view. These arguments are all over the place. Gun control is such a partisan issue in the US, partisan people will make capital whenever they can. And then there are the true believers who just lurrrve their arsenals.

I mean, what can you say to someone who says the answer to psychos with guns is to arm everybody (other than "stfu you fucking nut")?
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
Well exactly.
probably some stuff about immigration (given that he was Korean)

News reports are using the term "resident alien" (I always called said "international students"), so get ready for more of this.
 

Guybrush

Dittohead
News reports are using the term "resident alien" (I always called said "international students"), so get ready for more of this.

Yeah, I noticed that too. Worst term ever.

My thoughts were: 1. This is about an afternoon’s worth of Iraqi killings; 2. Unlike most of his equals, at least he managed to up the body count somewhat; 3. There is something perversely noble about these guys killing themselves amid the fury, depriving society of anyone on which to project its rage.

The U.S.’s unhealthy fascination with guns never ceases to amaze me.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
Yeah, I noticed that too. Worst term ever.

My thoughts were: 1. This is about an afternoon’s worth of Iraqi killings; 2. Unlike most of his equals, at least he managed to up the body count somewhat; 3. There is something perversely noble about these guys killing themselves amid the fury, depriving society of anyone on which to project its rage.

The U.S.’s unhealthy fascination with guns never ceases to amaze me.

3 thoughts and not one ounce of sympathy for the victims? Pfffffffft
 

arcaNa

Snakes + Ladders
There is something perversely noble about these guys killing themselves amid the fury, depriving society of anyone on which to project its rage.
Oh, come on.
Its wrong to "glorify" him in any way, IMO... It will only lend a false sense of legitimacy to his actions in the eyes of some people.
Nothing can justify what he's done, no matter how much you suffer it's fucking not on to run around and kill people, ffs...
 

mms

sometimes
Yeah, I noticed that too. Worst term ever.

My thoughts were: 1. This is about an afternoon’s worth of Iraqi killings; 2. Unlike most of his equals, at least he managed to up the body count somewhat; 3. There is something perversely noble about these guys killing themselves amid the fury, depriving society of anyone on which to project its rage.

The U.S.’s unhealthy fascination with guns never ceases to amaze me.
there was a commentator on the news saying ths had turned into a competition, but how is that possible since the outcome is always the killers own suicide.
Your last point is interesting, its not really noble, and the situation is dissapaited into unfocussed rage i think, polarised maybe, between the pro and anti gun crew.

That gun nut on newsnight was some Virgininian politician, how can everyone being armed be a logical response to a manical gunman, but it's a response that's always used.
It's beside the point what his skin colour was, as there is no escaping that this has always been an american problem, however you dress it up, there is no racial/biological determination which makes someone do this although there seem to be cultural ones developing.
 

Guybrush

Dittohead
3 thoughts and not one ounce of sympathy for the victims? Pfffffffft

I blame it on U.S. media’s maudlin unctuousness. ‘Not one ounce’ are your words, not mine; I do feel for the victims, albeit not as much as I feel for the thousands of innocent Iraqis maimed or killed every month.

Oh, come on.
Its wrong to "glorify" him in any way, IMO... It will only lend a false sense of legitimacy to his actions in the eyes of some people.
Nothing can justify what he's done, no matter how much you suffer it's fucking not on to run around and kill people, ffs...

I’m not saying it’s pretty, it’s highly condemnable for sure, but to say that it’s not there is to shrink from the harshness of reality. It does give him a ‘last laugh’ of sorts. The example par excellence is the 11/9 attacks, obviously.
 

turtles

in the sea
While agree this kind of behaviour needs to be condemned as strongly as possible (glorifying these bastards is certainly not helping), I do feel that sometimes the "showing insufficient remorse/glorifying the perpetrator" argument can often be used too easily to try and shut down explanations that try to look at the event as not just a lone individual acting out, but as part of a larger system of problems of which the individual is a symptom. I mean, no one here supports the killing of innocents (really!), but some times it seems like if you are willing to take even a small part of the responsibility for the crime away from the individual and put it onto society (and not just access to guns) then you are somehow "supporting" the shootings.

Yes there's no "justification" for what he's done, but there are certainly explanations that reflect worse on the guy, and some that at least portray him somewhat sympathetically. And it seems generally the preferred option is to demonize the guy, rather than trying to look for a broader explanation. Not accusing anyone here of doing this...just wanted to preemptively state it.

One of the reasons I think this is that, as that article Gavin posted (which is quite good, imo) alludes to, people are actually a lot more sympathetic to these type of things than they are willing to admit, and so demonize the killer even more than necessary just to alleviate the guilt they feel for sympathizing. Because we've all hated our classmates/coworkers/whatever at some time, all been pissed off at the world, and we all know how easy it would be to actually get the required supplies and plan the whole thing out, it's just actually doing it that's the part where we balk. But it's like when your standing on the edge of a cliff or on top of a tall building and you're always just a little bit afraid because there's this crazy voice in the back of your head going jump! jump! because there's a part of you that thinks it would be pretty great to be flying through the air if only for such a short moment.
 

Freakaholic

not just an addiction
i watched a lot of the media attention on this yesterday: checked the news every hour for udpates, watched the usually deplorable nightly news program just to catch the updates. cant tell you why, other than a fascination with death, much the same as the media addiction that followed 9/11.

anyway, watching all that news showed that, repeatedly the news outlets were covering this because people wanted information, but there was no new or extremely limited info to cover. so, they have to find an angle.

and, in this day and age, that angle turns to politics and gun control. i think at Columbine, the gun control issue took a back seat to the music/video game control issue, but i think that was because of something the killers had said/wrote (?).

so, i dont want to say that gun control, as an issue, is only made up by the media to fulfill space on a popular story, but on the other hand.... i dont think it matters in this case.

as a side note, to go along with this "story" one news agnecy ran an interview with some lady in texas who, while sitting at a cafe had her parents gunned down while her gun sat in her car because of texas' "unfair" gun law disallowing carrying concealed weapons. so, she began her mission to change this law, and succeeded with George W Bush signing a new law as governor of Texas that allows concealed weapons.

arent there a whole host of other issues to look at here? especially a society that alienates people to such a degree that their only outlet seems, to them, to be going out in a hail of gunfire? maybe thats just too abstract though.....
 

Guybrush

Dittohead
One of the reasons I think this is that, as that article Gavin posted (which is quite good, imo) alludes to, people are actually a lot more sympathetic to these type of things than they are willing to admit, and so demonize the killer even more than necessary just to alleviate the guilt they feel for sympathizing. Because we've all hated our classmates/coworkers/whatever at some time, all been pissed off at the world, and we all know how easy it would be to actually get the required supplies and plan the whole thing out, it's just actually doing it that's the part where we balk. But it's like when your standing on the edge of a cliff or on top of a tall building and you're always just a little bit afraid because there's this crazy voice in the back of your head going jump! jump! because there's a part of you that thinks it would be pretty great to be flying through the air if only for such a short moment.

This is so true.

arent there a whole host of other issues to look at here? especially a society that alienates people to such a degree that their only outlet seems, to them, to be going out in a hail of gunfire? maybe thats just too abstract though.....

Although that is a fairly common explanation where I come from: stressing how fractionation, ruthless competition, xenophobia, etc., turn school institutions into veritable powder-kegs.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
I blame it on U.S. media’s maudlin unctuousness. ‘Not one ounce’ are your words, not mine; I do feel for the victims, albeit not as much as I feel for the thousands of innocent Iraqis maimed or killed every month.

Well it was you who listed your three thoughts, none of which included any expression of pity or empathy for the victims. No doubt there will be/already is an outpuring of "maudlin unctuousness" and much of it might be a bit sick-making, but making any kind of connection between this and Iraq is pretty fucked up IMO.
 

mms

sometimes
but making any kind of connection between this and Iraq is pretty fucked up IMO.

why?
if you live in a country that extols war without reason, who's values are simplistic black and white goodies and baddies, even more so as it desperatley defends its position by painting everything in really really polarised terms because there seems no other choice, then surely there will be people, especially young people who will internalise some of this state sanctioned violence, internalise it and turn it's values as personal war. It's certainly not an unusual thing in the US and as a reaction to the US in many ways historically, i'm not just talking about guys with guns in schools, you could take in the panthers, weathermen, timothy mcveigh etc, even though we know about how they internalised and justified their personal wars, they were undoubtedly a creation of US culture and usually one at war. Painting the person who did this as just a lone random crazy avoids all the factors that go to create this situation, and doesn't help explain why it keeps on happening in similar US instituitions too, those that try and fill people with some types of the values of US society.
 
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crackerjack

Well-known member
Why is it so? Comparing how events are perceived differently depending on where they occur, and who they befall, is pretty instructive, I think.

1/ I don't know what it's like in the US, but the ongoing catastrophe that is Iraq has received acres of coverage here in the UK. Individual instances don't get as much, but then they've come to be expected - it is a war zone. And I don't think it's unreasonable or unnatural that the American media should cover in depth, and with a greater degree of horror, a massacre on its own doorstep.

2/ It comes across as petty point scoring. There are some people out there whose first reaction to soomething like this is a kinda "Ha ha, in yer face Bush". Maybe you're not one of them, but when you link it to Iraq and follow it with shit like
Unlike most of his equals, at least he managed to up the body count somewhat; 3. There is something perversely noble about these guys killing themselves amid the fury, depriving society of anyone on which to project its rage.
it sure looks like you might be.
 
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